The Misfortuneteller
by Vol lady
Summary: A psychic comes to Stockton to perform at the Gaiety and warns Nick of some dire mishap involving him and Heath.
1. Chapter 1

The Misfortuneteller

Chapter 1

Nick was not disillusioned when it came to understanding what attracted him to a woman – beauty, period. Oh, she had to have some kind of warm personality or he'd lose interest after a while. He'd learned that lesson the hard way, and he wasn't sorry to learn it. But when he was honest with himself, he admitted he wouldn't get very interested in the first place if she were not really beautiful.

His mother rolled her eyes over that character trait more than once, and Jarrod and Heath kept telling him he was losing out by being so single-minded. Now and then Nick thought they were right, and once or twice he'd even become attracted to a woman who was not particularly beautiful – Jennie Hall being the most recent. But he'd always come to know those women as friends first. The attraction came slowly, after he'd gotten to know the woman some other way. With Jennie, it had been guilt over making her the butt of a cruel joke. There was also a girl name Anne when he was fresh home from the war, and that attraction had come because she was so attracted to him and treated him like the best-looking man in the valley.

All right, maybe he was a little vain, too.

So, Nick was not surprised when he spotted the new young woman in town – auburn-haired, tall and shapely, dressed as if she had money of her own. She was walking toward the green-grocer's, and Nick was just about to leave his brothers and the buckboard in front of the mercantile when Jarrod caught the direction he was looking in. "Give it up, Nick," he said. "She's not going to be in town long."

"How do you know?" Nick asked, still smiling her way.

"Haven't you seen the sign at the Gaiety?"

Nick turned his brothers' way. "What sign?"

"Mademoiselle Sophiette," Heath said. "She's a performer. Here for a week." And he stared a little longer after her himself, looking a bit more carefully than Nick was, a little more curiously.

"She sings?" Nick asked.

"No," Jarrod said, "she talks to the dead."

"She does what?" Nick blurted.

"Talks to the dead, tells your future, that sort of thing," Heath said, still watching her.

"I saw her in San Francisco a few months ago," Jarrod said.

"YOU saw a fortune-teller?" Nick asked, not believing his intelligent, down-to-earth brother would do such a thing.

"Well, it was something the young lady I was seeing at the time wanted to take me to," Jarrod said.

"You never mentioned you were seeing anyone in San Francisco, Jarrod," Heath said.

"I'm not anymore," Jarrod said. "My date had Mademoiselle Sophiette do a reading for her and the Mademoiselle told her to dump me, so she did."

Nick and Heath both laughed out loud.

"I don't think my date was expecting that kind of advice," Jarrod said. "I think she was expecting just the opposite."

"Did you get her to do a reading for you?" Heath asked.

"For me? Why would I do that when she gives such lousy advice?"

"I wonder what advice she'd give me," Nick mused.

Jarrod and Heath looked at each other, and then in unison said, "'Get lost.'"

Nick gave them a sneer.

Jarrod said, "I have to get back to the office. Heath, I'll leave Nick to you. If he tries to get his fortune told, it's on your head."

Jarrod headed for his office as he brothers climbed into the buckboard and Nick took the reins. "I wonder what she would say," Nick mused again.

"Nothing you'd want to hear, Nick," Heath said, watching the girl and then watching Nick watch the girl. "Drive."

Nick drove.

XXXXXXX

Jarrod worked late at the office and was leaving just before eight when he spotted his brother Nick going into the Gaiety. "Oh, no," he said to himself. He debated what to do, if anything, but the wicked side of him just had to go in and tell Nick he had caught him entering the theatre. Jarrod crossed the street, bought a ticket, and went inside.

Nick was at the bar inside, being served a beer. He didn't see his older brother walk up beside him and almost jumped when Jarrod said, "You don't recognize good advice when it's handed to you on a silver platter, do you?"

"Just curious," Nick said, self-consciously. "And – she's awfully good to look at."

The first act – two jugglers who tossed sabers to each other while a pianist played – were local mainstays who were here fairly often. Jarrod ordered a beer and pretty much ignored what was going on on the stage. "I won't deny that," he said, responding to Nick's interest in the woman's looks.

"Why haven't you headed home yet?" Nick asked.

"I worked late," Jarrod said. "I saw you come in here and had to needle you a bit. Are you going to ask her to tell your fortune?"

"Is that the way it works? You ask her, or does she just come to you?"

"She did both when I saw her. My date made an appointment for a private reading. I assume she's doing that in Stockton, too."

"So how does she do it, you think? Does she just see things while she's talking to you?"

"Yeah, she sees dollar signs. She makes it up, Nick. Maybe she decides what she thinks you want to hear, or maybe she just pulls it out of thin air, but it's all an act, Nick."

"Why don't you ask her to read you and see if she tells you that girl in San Francisco shouldn't have dumped you?"

Jarrod laughed. "I don't need a fortune teller to tell me that. But it was all for the best. We wouldn't have gone anywhere with or without Mademoiselle Sophiette."

"Pretty name, isn't it? Sophiette."

"It's different."

They chatted idly until the jugglers were finished and the stage emptied. Then the lights in the house dimmed a bit, a stage hand brought a single chair out center stage, and the lady in question came out. She sat down in silence, closed her eyes, and lifted her face up slightly. The conversations going on in the house quieted down.

She said nothing at all for a long minute, then, her eyes still closed, she said, "There is a man here – an older man. I'm seeing a name that begins with the letter – J. Not John. Jason, I think, or Joshua. Jason or Joshua. He doesn't live in Stockton. He's passing through. He'll be gone tomorrow. He should be careful when traveling. He's going somewhere to the south of Stockton. He should be very careful when he's in Modesto."

Pretty general, Jarrod thought to himself. He looked at Nick and decided Nick was not particularly focusing on what the woman was saying. Jarrod agreed, she was very pretty, but he wasn't sure he'd pay good money again just to look at her.

Mademoiselle Sophiette was quiet again for another long minute. She still hadn't opened her eyes. Nick wondered what color they were.

She spoke again to someone with a name that began with a T who was troubled because he had lost something valuable. She suggested he look in the sofa in his living room for it. Then she opened her eyes and she looked Nick's way. Nick's smile grew, and he straightened up attentively.

She looked away from Nick again and said, "There is a man here whose wife's name is Madeline. Yes, Madeline, or Amanda, something with a 'ma' sound in it. His wife has lost her mother and she's very sad, still very sad even though it has been some time. He should tell his wife that her mother is happy. She is with her father again. That should make his wife feel better."

Jarrod said quietly, "I think I'll head home in as soon as I finish this beer, Nick."

"Yeah, yeah, see you later," Nick said, still smiling at Mademoiselle Sophiette.

She did a few more readings. Nick noticed her look his way a few more times. He was getting his own premonitions when Jarrod finished his beer and said, "Don't spend too much money, Nick."

As Jarrod began to leave, Mademoiselle Sophiette finished her set and stood up, and then, out of the blue, she said, "There is a man here named Nicholas – Nick. Yes – Nick." And she leveled her gaze on Nick again.

Jarrod stopped, noticing it. He waited.

She suddenly began to lose her breath, and then she abruptly left the stage without saying anything else. Nick looked at his older brother, who looked just as confused as he did. "I wonder what that was about," Nick said.

People in the crowd began wondering, too. A lot of people were looking Nick's way, and then Jarrod noticed the theatre manager, a man named Markey, was coming through the crowd toward them.

"Nick, Jarrod, can you come backstage for a minute?" Markey asked. "Mademoiselle Sophiette asked to see you privately."

Nick and Jarrod looked at each other. When Nick smiled, Jarrod knew he had to go with him because his brother was about to get suckered into something. Jarrod pointed the way and followed Nick and Market backstage.

They went to Mademoiselle Sophiette's dressing room, where Markey knocked on the door. She told them to come in, and Nick and Jarrod did. Neither one of them knew what to expect, but neither one of them dreamed it would be what they saw.

She had been crying.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Mademoiselle Sophiette quickly wiped her eyes with a lace handkerchief from her sleeve and stood up from her make-up table, extending her hand and smiling as if she were trying to make the Barkley brothers believe she hadn't been crying. "Hello," she said, "I hope you don't think I'm being overdramatic in asking you to come to my dressing room, but I when I saw you in the house, I wanted to be sure I had a chance to meet you."

Jarrod and Nick were both uneasy. Jarrod was first to get his voice. "I'm Jarrod Barkley, this is my brother Nick," he said, took her hand and kissed it.

Nick did the same thing as Mademoiselle Sophiette said, "Yes, I recognized you, Mr. Barkley. We've met before, or at least I've seen you before in San Francisco, not that long ago. Please, call me Sophie."

Nick let his eyes meet hers. Now he knew. Hers were a beautiful shade of green. "I enjoyed your performance," Nick said.

She smiled. "I'm glad you did."

"Even though I'm not quite sure about the last of it you addressed to me."

"Well, I'm not quite sure about it either. That's another reason I wanted to see you. I'm not sure what was happening, but don't let it bother you."

Don't let it bother you, Nick thought. That was hard to do, but the more he looked at her, the less worried he was. She was beautiful. "I was hoping for a private reading sometime before you leave Stockton."

Jarrod almost cleared his throat. She was reeling Nick in.

"I would like that," Sophie said, "but not tonight. Tomorrow. Come by here before the show, about five?

"I'll be here," Nick said.

"Is there any other reason you wanted to see us tonight?" Jarrod asked.

"To apologize to you for suggesting to your lady that she break up with you," Sophie said and smiled a bit more. "I have what they call a photographic memory. I remember everything I see, everything I'm told, everything I tell anyone else. So, I remember you and your lady."

"That's a remarkable talent," Jarrod said, but he purposely did not pursue what she said or ask for a private reading. While he might be ready to believe she had a superlative memory, he was not ready to believe she saw the future or talked to the dead.

"I suggested she break up with you because she was not for you, not because you were not for her," Sophie said. "But of course, any woman who breaks up with a man because a soothsayer tells her to doesn't really want the man anyway."

Jarrod wasn't ready to discuss his love life with this stranger – or even discuss it in front of Nick – so he just nodded. He also wasn't ready to believe she only called them back to apologize to him. She wanted that reading that Nick asked for.

They exchanged only a few more words before she said, "I need to get ready for the next set. It takes a few minutes for me to settle my mind. Thank you for coming back, and I will see you tomorrow, Nick."

They parted company with Nick smiling and Jarrod as skeptical as ever. It wasn't the reading Nick was smiling about – although it was the private part he was smiling about. They left the theatre through the stage entrance and were out in the alley before Jarrod said, "She saw you coming, Nick."

"What?" Nick asked as they walked toward the street. "What do you mean?"

"She knows a pigeon when she sees one," Jarrod said. "She knew who you were when she saw you. She knows you have money. That's why she brought on that wiping the tears act when we came in. She knew you'd fall for it."

"Just how do you suppose she knew all that when she's never met me before?"

"The fact that you were with me, and the look in your eyes when you looked at her from the audience. She reads people for a living, Nick."

"Ah," Nick brushed him off. "What's money good for if not to spend it foolishly now and then?"

"Be very, very careful, Nick," Jarrod said. "These people are experts at separating a man from a lot of that money."

"Tell you what, Pappy," Nick said. "I'll make you a little bet. I will pay you double however much she gets out of me."

"How is that a bet?" Jarrod asked.

"I pay you if she gets more than fifty dollars out of me. If she doesn't get more than fifty dollars out of me, you pay me double what she gets."

"And just who am I going to go to to find out how much she's gotten out of you? Neither one of you is going to tell me the truth!"

"I will swear on a stack of bibles that I will tell you the truth. When she leaves town next week, I will tell you exactly and honestly how much of my money she's leaving with. How's that?"

"All right," Jarrod agreed. "You're on. But that includes how much money you spend on her while she's here."

"Fair enough, except I do want one night out with her, if she'll do me the honor, and we don't count that money. Deal?"

Jarrod held his hand out. "Deal."

Nick shook it.

XXXXXXXX

"A fortuneteller?" Victoria blurted out when Nick told her who he was planning to see the next night and that she would give him a private reading.

"Oh, yes!" Audra said. "Mademoiselle Sophiette! I saw the billboard when I was in town the other day. How was it, Nick? Did she tell anyone anything surprising?"

"If she did, whoever she told it about wasn't talking," Jarrod put his two cents worth in. He sat down in his thinking chair with a glass of scotch, watching Heath near the fireplace as he privately laughed.

"Big Brother is a skeptic," Nick said, "but he has to admit that the lady remembered him from when he saw her in San Francisco a while back."

"You saw her?" Victoria said.

"My date's idea," Jarrod said. "She told my date to break up with me, and she did."

"Well, no wonder you don't like her," Audra said.

Jarrod laughed. "That's got nothing to do with it, Audra. We were finished anyway."

"And we never even knew her name," Victoria said.

"Abigail," Jarrod said and left it at that.

"Well, I have to admit to being a bit of a skeptic, too, Nick," Heath said. "I've seen these fortunetellers at work. The good ones are very, very good. They tell you something awful is gonna happen to you and then sell you some kind of token or a dozen tokens to prevent the bad thing from happening. They can suck the money right out of your pocket and make you happy they did."

Heath felt a little bad about the way he'd put that, but he had an agenda he wasn't sure about. He wasn't ready to reveal it yet.

"Nobody's gonna suck any of my money out of me," Nick said. "Or at least, not much. Jarrod and I have a bet. If she gets more than fifty dollars out of me, I have to pay him double, and if she gets less, he pays me double. And I promised not to lie to him about the amount."

"I made the bet because I thought it would keep him frugal," Jarrod said.

"I certainly hope so," Victoria said. "Do you plan to take her to dinner, Nick?"

"Maybe once, if I can talk her into it, but she's only here for a week," Nick said. "I'll have a private reading with her tomorrow, maybe take her to dinner, and chances are that will be it. So you can all quit worrying."

"Just remember one thing, Nick," Victoria said. "She will be here for a week. You have to live with me forever." And she gave him one of those "you watch yourself" looks.

Jarrod chuckled, and Heath grinned. Nick looked to Audra for help, but she just shrugged a little.

Later in the evening, as they were heading up the stairs for bed, Heath spoke quietly to Jarrod. "You think this is a good idea, letting Nick be alone with this fortuneteller?"

"He's a grown man, Heath," Jarrod said. "We can't stop him."

"Yeah, but you know how gullible he can be sometimes, especially if there's a pretty girl around."

Jarrod laughed a little. "Well, Nick and I have that bet. The prospect of winning some money from me will probably keep him in line. Besides, nothing terrible happened to me the first time I came across this Mademoiselle Sophiette."

"You lost your girl."

"That wasn't terrible. She was bleeding me drier than the Mademoiselle will ever bleed Nick."

Heath laughed a little, but then he said, "I wonder if I should go see this Mademoiselle in action tomorrow night at the Gaiety, see if Nick needs his wallet held for him after he has this private reading."

Jarrod slapped his younger brother on the back. "It might not be a bad idea. I've got a lot of work to do. I'll probably be in my office too late to catch her performance. If anything drastic happens, you can come get me and we'll get Nick home in one piece together."

Heath nodded. Then he said, "You don't think he'd really believe her if she told him something awful, do you?"

By now they were at Heath's door, and they stopped. "Normally, I'd say no, but she is a beautiful woman. Very beautiful."

"And we both know how Nick is around a beautiful woman," Heath said, nodding.

"Besotted," Jarrod said. "Absolutely besotted."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Nick came in early from the field the next day, cleaned himself up and shaved, and by five o'clock he was at the Gaiety in his finest suit and best cologne. The janitor let him in and pointed him toward the stage. Nick was a little confused, thinking Sophie was going to give him this private reading right there on the stage, but she wasn't there. He climbed up, looking around, taking a look back in the wings. "Here, Mr. Barkley," he finally heard her voice.

She was sitting at a small table, tucked way back in the wings. A very tiny spot with a very small candle lit in the middle of the table.

"Good evening," Nick said and joined her there. "How are you tonight, Sophie?"

She smiled. "I'm well, Mr. Barkley."

"Please, call me Nick," he said and sat down in the other chair at the small table. "Kind of an unusual place for a private reading, isn't it?"

"There's no one around but the janitor who's out front and the manager who's in his office," Sophie said. "Sometimes at these smaller venues, you have to make do."

"Well, what do we do now? How does this work?"

She took his hands, surrounding the small candle, smiling. "It's painless, except perhaps for your wallet. We didn't discuss price, but I charge five dollars for a private reading."

"Oh," Nick said and started to remove his hand to go for his wallet.

"After the reading, Nick," Sophie said, keeping a strong hold on his hands. "I don't want to disrupt the flow of energy you brought here with you."

"Energy?"

"Everyone has their own flow of energy. Some people call it an aura. To some people like me, that aura is visible."

"You can see my aura?" Nick asked.

"Yes. You have a very vibrant aura, very strong. There are many colors, blending and moving around you in very sophisticated patterns."

Nick laughed a little. "That's the first time anybody called me sophisticated."

Sophie smiled. "Close your eyes now, but before we begin, I want you to tell me what you want to know. If I see good things, I assume you want to know about them. But sometimes what I see is not good. Do you want to know if I see anything like that?"

"Whatever you want to show me," Nick said.

"All right. I usually start with the general, and as more particular things come to me I will talk about them, good and bad. First of all I see a very prosperous man, a man who works hard, a man who lives life passionately and takes things as they come and generally sees the good in what comes his way."

Nick kept his eyes closed and listened to her flatter him in general. Gradually she began to talk about more particular things – how he was going to lose a favorite gold watch but it would probably be under the desk in his bedroom, how he should be careful around a horse that had just a bit of white stocking on its rear legs, mundane things like that. After about ten minutes of that sort of thing, he noticed her grip on his hands getting tighter. And then even tighter.

"There is something," she said, her voice growing deeper. "Something about a brother. How many brothers do you have?"

"Three," Nick said.

"I see two. One brother lives far away, doesn't he?"

Eugene, in Baltimore. "Yes," Nick said.

"The other two are here with you – except that your older brother often goes to San Francisco where I saw him. The other brother is younger than you and lives here with you."

Nick didn't say anything. He listened.

"Something," she said. "There is something. Something that will happen between you and your younger brother."

Nick snuck his eye open a bit. He saw that she had her eyes closed now, and her face was contorted, like she was thinking very hard and trying to figure something out. Nick did not close his eyes again.

"You must be very careful," Sophie said. "Around your younger brother in particular. Something – there is something – "

Then suddenly she gasped and let go of his hands. Her eyes flew open and she stared straight at him. Nick began to tremble. "What is it?" he found himself asking.

She actually blubbered a bit. "It's – too confusing. I only saw that you must be very careful around your younger brother. There could be something – an accident – something."

"Like what?" Nick asked. "Don't leave it there. What did you see?"

Sophie abruptly blew the candle out and stood up. "It's not clear enough. Please, Nick, go on now. I won't charge you. Come by again before I leave town and if it's clearer, I'll tell you, but in the meantime just be careful. Be very careful around your younger brother."

Nick had stood up when she did and wanted to ask more, but Sophie hurried away and disappeared back toward her dressing room. Shaken, Nick nearly went after her, but then he thought better of it. He remembered Heath saying how a fortuneteller could tell you something awful just to sell you some kind of token to ward off the danger, and for an instant he felt caution and doubt roll over him. She was setting him up.

But what if she wasn't? What if she actually saw some kind of accident happening to Heath? Or was it an accident happening to Nick himself, because of Heath? What was it she saw?

Confused, even frightened, Nick left the theatre and stood out in the street. In a daze, he didn't know what to do or where to go for what seemed like an hour but was really only a minute or two. His head began to clear.

Nick looked up. Jarrod's office was across the street, and Nick could see him at his desk, his back to the window. He started over there, but then he stopped. He was going to look like a fool if he went to Jarrod with this. But so what? He'd looked like a fool a lot in front of his older brother, and the more he thought about what had just happened, the more nervous he became.

He looked up at his brother at his desk again, and he nearly went up there. But then he turned away and went to Harry's saloon instead. A beer to settle his nerves. That would be a better idea.

Harry looked at him and immediately said, "Nick, you look like you just saw a ghost. What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing, nothing," Nick said. "I just could use a beer, and a sandwich maybe, too."

Harry drew him a beer and gave him a ham sandwich from the stack at the other end of the bar. "Something's got you jumpy. Everything all right at the ranch?"

"Yeah, everything's fine," Nick said.

Harry knew it was time to leave him alone. Nick wasn't going to talk about whatever was bothering him.

Nick didn't see Jarrod come in. Jarrod looked at Harry with concern, then stood beside his brother and said, "Beer and a sandwich for me, too, Harry."

Nick jumped at the sound of his voice.

Jarrod wasn't surprised he jumped. "I saw you heading over here from my office," he said quietly to Nick as Harry brought him a beer and a sandwich. "What did she say to you?"

"Nothing," Nick said.

"Come on, Nick, she said something that has you about to jump out of your skin," Jarrod said.

Nick was reluctant to say. Jarrod would just laugh it off and he was not ready to be laughed off about this.

Jarrod wondered whether to try to cajole it out of Nick or be very sincere and understanding instead. He opted for the latter. "Nick," he said, even more quietly, "what did she say to you?"

Nick finally looked his older brother in the eye. He motioned Jarrod over to a table in the back, and the two men carried their beer and food over there. But once they sat down, Nick was reluctant to talk again.

Jarrod tried once more. "Tell me, Nick. I won't bite your head off or tease you about it. What did she say to you?"

Nick took a deep breath. "She told me to be careful around Heath. She said there was going to be some sort of accident, like maybe I'd cause it."

Jarrod took a deep breath. An accident occurring around Nick and Heath wouldn't even be anything unusual. "Accidents happen to one or both of you all the time, Nick," Jarrod said gently. "She knows you work a ranch."

"This was different. She looked awful, like it was something really serious. And how did she know I even had a younger brother, Jarrod?" Nick asked. "Aren't you the only one she's ever seen?"

"Yes, but everybody in town knows you have a younger brother," Jarrod said. "She's probably picked up a lot about you since last night. That's what fortunetellers do. Did she try to sell you anything or ask for any money?"

Nick shook his head. "She wouldn't even let me pay for the reading."

"All she did was tell you to be careful around Heath?"

Nick nodded.

"Then take her advice and leave it at that," Jarrod said. "You can never be too careful anyway."

"She broke off the reading really sudden like," Nick said. "Like something was really bothering her about it. You should have seen her face."

"She doesn't work at a ranch. She doesn't know how dangerous it can be. What looked alarming to her might mean nothing to you. Heed the warning, Nick, and leave it at that. Come on, eat your sandwich, you'll feel better."

"Jarrod – what was she crying about when we went back to her dressing room last night?"

Jarrod hadn't expected that question. "It wasn't necessarily us, Nick. Could have been anything – the manager not happy with her show, hit her shin on the chair, anything."

Nick took a bite from his sandwich and washed it down with some beer, but he still looked really worried. Jarrod could see Nick wasn't going to let this pass, and Jarrod began to get irritated about it. He had been afraid a private reading was going to lead to something like this for Nick. He could be so easily taken in by a pretty face and even if she hadn't asked him for any money so far, Jarrod knew it was coming. In the meantime Nick was out and out scared, even though there was no reason for him to be.

Grumbling only to himself, Jarrod tried to appear unbothered in front of his brother, but inside, Pappy was getting his temper up. He was planning to visit the Mademoiselle himself.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"You should go home, Nick," Jarrod said as he got up from the table, his sandwich eaten and his beer gone. "Really, don't hang around here. Don't see her show again."

"Heath is coming in," Nick said.

"Let him come in. If Sophie says anything to him, he'll talk to you about it later and maybe it'll ease your mind. But don't go to her show tonight. Let it alone."

Nick sighed a bit, then got up. "You're right. Heath's a big boy. He doesn't need me chaperoning him, and if Sophie doesn't say anything to him, I will later."

"He'll just say what I said, Nick," Jarrod said. "Accidents happen all the time around the ranch. Accept the warning for what it is and just be careful. Maybe she was doing you a favor and you're just letting it scare you for no good reason."

"You going back to work?"

"Yeah, I'll be in pretty late tonight. Tell Mother not to stay up. I have a contract I have to finish up."

"All right," Nick said.

They left together, waving Harry good-bye. Nick's horse was hitched just outside the Gaiety, and Jarrod watched him mount up and ride out of town. Then he didn't go back up to his office. He went into the Gaiety.

The janitor let Jarrod in the door when he knocked. "I need to see the Mademoiselle," Jarrod said, and the janitor pointed toward the dressing rooms as if people coming to see her were a regular occurrence.

Jarrod remembered how to get back there and went straight to the same room he and Nick had been to the night before. He knocked. She said, "Come in."

Jarrod entered, taking his hat off. Sophie was at her make-up table, putting on her theatrical make-up. Jarrod noticed she made her eyes considerably darker – the better to scare you with, my dear, he thought. "Sophie," he said.

"Hello, Mr. Barkley," she said and turned to look at him.

Jarrod closed the door behind him. "It won't take a fortuneteller to know why I'm here."

"No," she said. "You spoke to Nick and he told you what I said."

"I'll get straight to the point," Jarrod said. "My younger brother can be impressionable, even if he is a grown man. A beautiful woman can make him even more so, and you are very beautiful."

"Thank you," she said.

"What you told him has him pretty shaken up, probably because he sees himself as somehow being part of the cause of this accident with our other brother. I doubt you can undo that, but I'm here to tell you that you won't be seeing him again, and you will not be giving him any dire warnings about anything again. If you do, I'll have you thrown out of this town before your head can spin. Do I make myself clear?"

Sophie looked away, then shook her head. "I knew you were a non-believer even in San Francisco."

"You don't see the future or talk to the dead," Jarrod said. "You just scare people and then try to get money out of them."

"Mr. Barkley, you can have your Pinkerton men check me out all you want," she said. "They will find that I have never been arrested, no one has ever sued me, and no one has ever claimed that I took money from them under any kind of false pretense. And I haven't taken any money from your brother or anyone else in this town, except the manager of this theatre who is paying me for my performance. I told Nick what I told him so that he would be extra careful around your other brother. That's all."

"Accidents happen all the time on ranches, Sophie," Jarrod said. "Nick and everyone else on that ranch are always very careful. You did not need to worry him."

Sophie stood up. She tilted her face and looked defiantly up at him. "I didn't tell him everything I could have told him, Mr. Barkley. You may not believe I have the gift I have, but I do have it, and I use it to try to help people, not terrify them. Now, if you would do me the courtesy, I have to get ready for my performance."

"Stay away from both my brothers, Sophie," Jarrod said. "I will have you thrown out of town if you don't."

He started to leave, but as he reached for the doorknob, she said, "Perhaps it's you who should stay away from them."

Jarrod looked back at her, glaring. "Don't try to frighten me or threaten me, Sophie. It won't work."

"I'm not threatening you," Sophie said. "I'm only warning you the way I warned Nick. Perhaps you should go to San Francisco for a while. I told Nick to be extra careful around your brother. Believe me, you shouldn't be around them at all."

Jarrod gave her a hard stare, and then he left, before he really let into her, because he was sorely tempted to do that. When he got back out onto the street, he went for another beer instead of going to his office. His temper was up, and he needed to tamp it back down.

But he didn't believe for one minute that she really knew of any reason he should not be around his family. That was a threat, and a pretty poor one at that. Harry drew him a beer without saying much – he knew that dark look in the oldest Barkley son's eyes and always left it alone when he saw it. Jarrod thanked him, and then nursed the beer while his anger cooled off.

Then he decided to wire Pinkerton in San Francisco.

About then, Heath came in, alone. He came over to the bar where Jarrod stood and got a beer for himself. Jarrod gave him a glance, and Heath saw the rage in his brother's eyes. "I ran into Nick on the way into town," Heath said. "He was heading home. You're in here nursing a beer like you want to hit somebody. Did you two have a fight?"

"No, not at all," Jarrod said. "He just saw that Mademoiselle Sophiette and she told him something, and I've just been to see her and I told her something."

Heath whistled. "Must have been a couple of big somethings. What's going on?"

"She told him to be extra careful around you, that an accident was coming."

Heath chuckled. "With me, when is an accident NOT coming? I get myself banged up at twice the rate anybody else on the ranch does."

"True," Jarrod agreed, "but Nick seemed to get it in his head that she was telling him that this time it was his fault."

"What did you tell her?"

"To leave our gullible brother alone."

"That shouldn't have you this mad."

"She doubled down on me. Told me it was ME who should stay away from the both of you, suggested I go to San Francisco for a while."

For reasons he couldn't explain yet, Heath took it seriously. "What are you gonna do?"

"Stay right where I am for starters. And have Pinkerton check her out. If I can show Nick she's a con artist, it'll bring him around."

"What if she isn't?"

Jarrod looked hard at his brother. "Oh, come on, Heath. You're not gonna buy into this now too, are you?"

"I'm not buying into anything," Heath said, remaining perfectly calm. "But it could be she isn't trying to take his money. He told me she wouldn't even let him pay for the reading tonight."

"That's a ruse," Jarrod said. "We both know how these fortunetellers operate. Give up a little bit now to get a lot more later."

"All right," Heath said. "So all we have right now is she says I'm an accident waiting to happen, Nick is scared it's his fault, and you're mad because she told you to stay away from me and Nick. That ain't much to get so worked up over, Jarrod."

Jarrod sighed. "When you put it that way, you're right."

"I'm not saying you shouldn't check her out, or that we shouldn't keep her away from Nick. The first one might be easier to do than the second one. But you and me, we're singing from the same page of the hymnal here. I don't want Nick to get fleeced any more than you do."

"What I can't figure out is how she's gonna work this to get money out of Nick."

"Maybe she doesn't want Nick's money."

"That's what these people always want, Heath."

"Unless she has something else in mind and we just don't know what it is."

"You're digging too deep. There's nothing there. It's money."

Heath checked his watch. "Well, I'm gonna go have a look at this lady for myself. You going back to the office?"

Jarrod finished his beer. "Yeah, I still have a lot to finish tonight."

"I'll see if you're still there when I leave the Gaiety." Heath finished his beer and gave his older brother a slap on the back. "Don't worry, Pappy. Nick'll wake up in a day or so. And if he doesn't, we'll clear this all up for him. And if we don't, she'll be gone in about six days anyway."

"Mmmm," Jarrod grumbled as Heath walked out.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Heath took a spot at the bar in the Gaiety just about where Nick and Jarrod had stood the night before. He drank another beer while the jugglers performed. He looked around at the patrons and did not see anyone he really knew. He was just as glad Nick hadn't come with him. In all honesty, he'd been a bit worried about that because if Nick had been here, Heath might have to explain something that wasn't going to make either of his brothers feel any better. Something he wasn't really ready to explain.

The jugglers left, and Mademoiselle Sophiette took the stage. And Heath's stomach plummeted. He closed his eyes for a moment, then looked up again when she began to speak. Not that he was really hearing what she was saying. He was hearing other words. He was seeing another face. Older words, younger face. His own younger face. Her younger face.

She spoke to a couple people in the crowd, told someone how to find the hundred dollars they lost somewhere at home, told someone else her long dead father was watching over her and was sorry for leaving her. Heath turned away, and his movement drew her attention. When he looked back toward the stage, she was staring directly at him.

"There is a man here who needs to be very careful," she said, looking straight at him. "He works in a dangerous place. There's a world of hurt waiting for him if he's not careful."

Suddenly, her calm seemed to disappear. She closed her eyes and began to tremble. Heath wondered if it was fake or not.

"There's a tragedy waiting for his whole family," she said, her voice beginning to tremble. "There's a darkness that hangs over his whole family – "

Abruptly, she got up and left the stage. People in the audience began to mumble to one another. Someone near Heath said something about wasting good money on a charlatan and wanting to get it back. Some of the women in the crowd looked upset.

Heath left his drink behind and went directly backstage. The manager tried to stop him, but he said, "I'm an old friend. I need to see her right away."

Heath and the manager knew each other, so the manager took him back to Sophie's dressing room and knocked on the door. From inside, her voice said, "Come in, Heath."

The manager raised an eyebrow, impressed she knew who was there, and opened the door for him. Heath stepped in and closed the door behind him.

She was in tears again, just as she had been when Jarrod and Nick had come in the night before. Heath immediately came to her and handed her his handkerchief. "Thank you," she said.

Heath said, "What are you doing, Sophie? Are you still so angry with me that you'd take it out on my family?"

"I'm not angry, and I'm not taking anything out on your family," she said, wiped her tears and dropped the handkerchief onto her dressing table. "I'm doing what I've always done – warn people when there's trouble so they can avoid it."

Heath sat down in a chair beside hers. "You've got my brother Nick so nervous that he might just hurt me accidentally because he's trying so hard not to hurt me. You've got my brother Jarrod so mad that he's about to really lose that considerable temper of his. And now you're telling me about tragedy over the whole family. This ain't warning, Sophie. This is you getting back at me by damaging the people I love."

She looked straight into his eyes. "Heath, I'm not interested in getting back at you anymore. I honestly haven't given you a second thought in almost ten years."

"Then why did you come here?"

"I took a job! I'm earning my living!"

"When did you start fortunetelling to earn a living?"

"When I discovered it would pay. I have to pay my way, Heath. But you know I'm not a fraud. You know I have the gift. I really have the gift."

Heath went back in his mind, back to a town south of here where an 18-year-old cow poke drifting from place to place ran into a 16-year-old girl who told him things about himself he'd never told anyone, who told him to be careful when he was working on a ranch nearby because there would be a fire and men would get hurt – and there was a fire, and men did get hurt. A girl who told him if he kept looking and kept believing, he would find answers he was looking for, about who he was and where he belonged. A girl who told him the two of them would be together forever one day. He'd left that girl ultimately and left her crying, and now here she was, giving her warnings and making her predictions in Stockton. Confusing his brothers, worrying them when there was no need.

"Sophie, you've been wrong as much as you've been right," Heath said. "What you're doing is messing up lives. Don't you know that?"

"I know that's what you thought and that's why you left me. You left me because of what I saw and because what I saw happened."

Heath shook his head. "That had nothing to do with why I left."

"No. You told me you left to find your birthright. Well if that's so, didn't I tell you you would find it? Wasn't I right?"

"Sophie, I made that happen. Not you. Nothing you told me made that happen."

"Maybe not," Sophie said. "But I did know it was going to happen, didn't I?"

Heath sighed. "Sophie, why did you come to Stockton?"

"I told you – I was hired. I know you think I came here because of you, but I came here because I was paid to come and for no other reason. I'm sorry I saw what I saw about your brothers, but I did."

"Then tell me more. Tell me what Nick is supposed to do that gets me hurt. Tell me why Jarrod should leave."

"You know it doesn't work that way. I see what I see, nothing more, and when I can help by warning someone about what I see, I do it, but I can never see everything."

Heath leaned back with a sigh. "Sophie – "

"I told your brothers what I saw. I warned them so they could avoid the things I saw. I warned you so that you could avoid what I saw. There's nothing more to it than that."

She turned away from him then, refusing to look at him. Heath didn't like the way any of this conversation went. It solved nothing. It explained nothing, either about the present or the past.

"Leave, Heath," Sophie said.

Heath got up. "I'm sorry, Sophie."

She laughed. "Sorry for what? Leaving me ten years ago? For what I told your brothers last night?"

"All of it," Heath said. And he left.

Heath went out through the stage door entrance and made his way out onto the street. His thoughts were all over the place, trying to make sense out of a confrontation that made no sense. He'd made no headway in getting Sophie to understand what she was doing. He'd made no headway in resolving what they'd left unresolved years ago. He'd made no headway in anything other than confirming she was that girl he knew ten years ago.

He stopped at the street, looked up and saw Jarrod was still in his office. Even though he had qualms about dumping his frustrations into his brother's lap, he thought Jarrod at least needed to know that Sophie was someone from his past – and he probably ought to know that even though she was often wrong in her predictions, she was often right, too. He hated that thought, but Jarrod needed to know it, because what if she was right this time and they didn't do anything about it?

He went up to Jarrod's second floor office and went right in. Jarrod looked up when he entered but didn't say anything. Heath sat down in one of the chairs in front of Jarrod's desk, rubbed his jaw, and said, "I got a few things I gotta tell you, Jarrod."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"Let me guess," Jarrod said. "She told you something else and now it has you worried."

"No," Heath said, shaking his head. "She did tell me something else, but it's not worrying me, not any more than things already did."

Jarrod leaned back in his chair. "I thought you weren't worried about any of this. Something about you and me singing from the same page of the hymnal."

"That was before I saw her. I suppose I should have said something before, but I didn't think she could be the same girl I knew."

"You knew?" Jarrod was suspicious now. "You knew her before?"

"I met her about ten years ago. She wasn't doing any fortunetelling then, not for money anyway. She did have a way of telling people things, like she does now. But she was 16 at the time, didn't make any money at it – at least that I knew of."

"Let me do a little fortunetelling of my own," Jarrod said. "You were involved back then."

Heath nodded.

"And she told you something back then that came true."

Heath said, "She told me there would be a fire where I worked and men would get hurt. And there was a fire and men got hurt."

"What else did she tell you back then?"

"That she and I would be together for good. That one didn't come true."

"Something else did."

Heath took a deep breath and shook his head. "No. She told me I'd kill a man in a shootout, somebody I didn't want to kill but I had no choice. I was 18, Jarrod. I didn't believe that. I didn't want to believe it. It scared me. And when she told me that, I told her good-bye and got as far away from her as I could."

Jarrod sighed. "And now she's back and predicting frightening things again."

"I'm sorry I didn't say anything yesterday. I just didn't think this girl could be her."

"Do you believe her now?"

"I don't know. I know she's wrong as often as she's right, but when she's right, she's really right."

Jarrod stretched the back of his neck. "Well, what do you want to do about it?"

"I don't know. I guess that's something you and me and Nick gotta figure out together. I'm not sure what to say to Mother and Audra about it, though."

"Nick may be saying it right now," Jarrod said. "He was shaken enough. You tell him what you just told me, and he'll be even more shaken."

"You're not?"

"No, I'm not," Jarrod said very seriously. "I don't believe anything a fortuneteller says, even if they're right sometimes. Anybody can be right sometimes."

"If we don't tell Nick about this, and something happens – he's gonna do some hurt to us. You know that."

Jarrod remembered a few shots to the jaw Nick had given him over the years for not telling him something he thought he ought to know. "Yeah, he is inclined that way. Well, then, all right, we'll at least tell him about you and Sophie."

"And Mother and Audra? What should we tell them?"

"They're likely to hit harder than Nick if something happens and they find out we kept it from them." Jarrod gave a big sigh. "Brother Heath, I think we'd just better go home and see what we can do with this mess."

Heath got up as Jarrod did. "I'd prefer you do the talking. You've got the silver tongue."

"Oh, no," Jarrod said. "A lot of this is yours to explain. I'll help, but you've got to carry the load."

"Thanks," Heath said as they headed for the door, and didn't mean it. "One thing, though. Whether you actually leave or not is up to you, and you gotta explain what you do about that."

"I'm not going anywhere," Jarrod said and reached to open the door.

XXXXXXXX

When it came time to explain things to everyone, Heath said what he had to say and then let it lie there. The problem was, the silence lay there, too, like a giant wet rag covering the living room. Heath mentally groped for more words, but he wasn't finding them. He looked toward Jarrod for help.

Jarrod said, "According to Heath, this girl is wrong as often as she's right. And you all probably know that I don't believe for a minute that she has any 'gift' for soothsaying or talking to the dead or anything like that."

"If she's right as often as she's wrong, how can you not believe any of it?" Audra asked. "Seems like you ought to believe half of it."

"Which half?" Jarrod asked. "Anyone can be right some of the time when they predict the future, and someone who pays close attention and asks the right questions – leading questions – can up that percentage considerably. And that's what these con artists do, pay attention and ask leading questions. They're very good at it. They can elicit information from you without you even knowing they're doing it."

"Isn't 'con artist' a pretty harsh word?" Nick asked. "Heath doesn't seem to think she's dishonest."

Heath hesitated. "I don't know about that. She didn't really used to be, but I don't know about now."

Nick paced to the other side of the room, hands on his hips, the exact body movements that told people he was worried. Victoria watched him and finally asked, "What do you want to do about this, Nick?"

Nick stopped and looked at her. "I want to believe she's wrong about what she told me – but I'm not sure I can take the chance."

"So what are you gonna do?" Jarrod asked. "Take off? Run away? For how long? She didn't put any kind of time limit on all this misfortune that's supposed to come our way."

"She couldn't be any more specific about any of this?" Victoria asked Heath.

He shook his head.

"Another trick of the trade," Jarrod said. "Open-ended tragedy."

Nick still looked nervous.

"Look, I have no desire to go anywhere, but if you think my leaving for a while will break the spell, I'll go back to San Francisco for a month or two," Jarrod said. "You can get along here without me."

"Not if you don't want to go, Jarrod," Victoria said. "Heath, all she said was that Nick should be extra careful around you, is that right?"

Nick and Heath both nodded.

"Then take it as a warning and be extra careful, both of you," Victoria said. "That certainly can't hurt."

"Nick's too nervous," Heath said, and when Nick glared at him, Heath said, "I'm sorry, Nick, but you are."

"Self-fulfilling prophecy," Jarrod said.

"Then I'll go away for a while," Nick said.

"No, I will," Heath said.

"No!" Victoria said, loudly. "No one will! Reacting like this because some Gaiety performer said there might be an accident is silly, and we are not silly people. There is also a ranch that won't run itself."

Nick took a deep breath. "All right," he said. "You're probably all right and I am being silly – and there's nothing like accusing me of being silly to make me smarten up."

No one was convinced that Nick had smartened up very much.

"I'll get over it!" Nick said. "She'll be gone in less than a week, and I'll get over it!"

"And no one goes to see Mademoiselle Whatever-her-name-is again," Victoria ordered.

Everyone nodded.

"Good," Victoria said and got up from her place on the settee. "Now, I'm going to bed. Tomorrow, we will all start fresh and life will go on perfectly normally."

Saying nothing more, Victoria left and went upstairs. Her children watched her go.

"She'll smack me upside the head if I don't straighten up, won't she?" Nick said to no one in particular.

"If she doesn't, I will," Jarrod said, and he headed up to bed, too.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

A good night's sleep seemed to have helped Nick cope. When he came down to breakfast, he wasn't his normal happy self, but he wasn't surly, either. And he apologized.

"I'm sorry I let this fortuneteller business get to me," he said after the morning prayer was done and everyone was digging in. "It was silly of me, and Mother, Jarrod, you're both right. The only way to deal with it is to be extra careful. I'll do the best I can and let the chips fall where they may."

"Good, because we got a lot of fence to fix today," Heath said. "Wanna join us, Jarrod?"

"No, I never finished that contract last night," Jarrod said. "I need to get into the office."

"What are you up to today, Audra?" Victoria asked.

"Nothing in particular," Audra said.

"You can help us fix fence," Heath offered, with a grin.

"I'd have to be a lot more bored than I am to do that," Audra said.

"Then you can help with beating some rugs," Victoria said.

"Hmm – " Audra said. "Fixing fence versus beating rugs. I'll beat rugs."

Before long, they all went their separate ways. Jarrod went to his office, taking note of the Gaiety across the street as he did and scowling at Sophie's name on the billboard. He wished Pinkerton would get back to him about her, but he knew it was probably going to take too long and she'd be gone before he heard back. At least he could feel a little better today about her because Nick was evening out, but he would be a lot happier when she was finished at the Gaiety and out of town.

He went up to his office and spent the morning finishing up the contract he had been working on the night before. His secretary came in and offered him coffee, but checking his watch and seeing it was going on eleven, he decided to take a break and headed out for coffee at the Stockton House instead. It was a lovely, sunny morning, and being finished with that contract made him enjoy the nice weather even more.

At the Stockton House café, he read the newspaper while he sipped coffee, getting caught up in the stories and not noticing the people around him – until he put the paper down to finish his coffee and saw her at the next table. He was startled.

"Good morning, Mr. Barkley," Sophie said.

Jarrod didn't feel like being a gentleman, but he was one. "Mademoiselle," he said politely but coolly.

"I didn't want to disturb your reading, but when I saw you here, I thought I ought to tell you I've seen more than I saw the other night."

"I'd just as soon you didn't."

She went on anyway, looking happy to be doing it. "It will rain hard this afternoon. The incident I saw with Nick and Heath will happen this afternoon, but it will all work out all right. They will be fine. I thought you'd like to know."

"Thank you," Jarrod said, "but I'd just as soon you kept your visions to yourself. Good day, Mademoiselle."

Jarrod left money for his coffee, and he left the newspaper behind for whoever might want to read it. He left the café as quickly as he could, not wanting to hear anything more from Sophie whether it was good or bad. Besides, he had another contract to dive into and get out of the way before the day was over. He went back up to his office and looked out his window as he removed his jacket. He saw the billboard at the Gaiety again and couldn't help thinking about what Sophie had just said to him.

It was cloudless now, but what if it did rain later, and what if something did happen to Nick and Heath but it turned out all right? Would that be enough for him to change his opinion of Sophie and start believing in what she was saying? For some reason, the notion that she might be right, and the notion that he might lose his skepticism, made him feel disarmed and exposed. It made him shiver.

He shook it off. Nothing was going to happen today, he told himself, and he went back to work.

XXXXXX

Nick and Heath, along with three other men, spent the morning clearing old fencing on the north side of the ranch, getting the brush out of the way and restringing the wire. It was slow and tedious work, and it would require some restringing of the part of the fence that passed over a creek. Not a large creek – only about forty feet wide or so. To allow for the water level to rise and fall, the posts over the water that kept the string of wire relatively taut were not set into the earth, just hanging there from where the fenceline was anchored into the ground on either bank of the creek. After they had lunch, Nick sent the other men across the creek to check the posts there and restring the wire. The plan then was to have either he or Heath wade into the water – which was knee deep at best – to carry the new wire across to the other men waiting on the other side.

They needed to reset some posts on both sides of the creek, and that took time that Nick hadn't been planning to spend. By the time they were ready to take the wire across the creek, it was after three in the afternoon. "You take the wire across," Nick said to his brother. "I'll hold it up from over here and try to keep it taut enough for you."

Flash floods are amazing things. A relatively small stream like this one could be draining a huge area, and ten miles away there could be a downpour when where you were was clear and comfortable. Depending on the terrain, you might not even see the clouds that were dumping torrents of rain on the creek you were looking at. But if it rained hard enough those ten miles away, you could see a stream rise fast with a wall of water coming at you before you could get out of the way.

Heath was in the middle of the stream when the men on the other side saw the water coming. "Get out of there! Flash flood! Get to shore!" the men yelled.

Heath heard them, and being closer to the shore where Nick stood, he dropped the wire and hurried back toward his brother. But he slipped, going down in the mud, and before either he or Nick knew it, the wall of water was there.

Heath tried to scramble to shore. Nick tried to reach for him, but he had to dodge the wire Heath had lost his grip on as it sprung back toward him. By then, the water got to Heath and swept him away. Tumbling over in the torrent, Heath just kept trying to grab for something, and he found tree branches. He dragged himself up, choking and muddy, into a tree that had been on dry land on the shore a few minutes ago but was now partly under the rushing water. Heath saw Nick running toward him. Heath waved him back, yelling, "It's all right! Stay back! I'm all right!"

Nick stopped, terrified, watching the water still rising and surrounding that tree Heath had hold of. Through the leaves, he saw Heath climb even higher into the tree, but Nick began to be afraid the water was going to take the tree down and Heath with it. Nick ran for his horse and the rope he had fastened to the saddle. He knew it was going to be tough, but if he could get the rope to Heath, he might at least be able to hold onto him if the tree went over in the flood.

Nick hurried back with the rope. Dry ground was only about fifteen feet away from the tree Heath was trapped in. Nick got as close to the water as he could get and tried to throw the lariat to Heath, trapped even higher now up in that tree. He missed. The lariat landed at a lower branch in the tree. Nick saw Heath was thinking about going lower to get it, but the rushing water was too close.

"Stay there!" Nick yelled and pulled the rope back toward him. It got caught in the branches and wouldn't budge.

The tree started to go over in the swirling water. Nick pulled and pulled but the rope would not come loose. He still pulled. Maybe he could get the tree to not wash away.

Stupid. One man couldn't fight the water or pull a tree out of it. Nick still tried, but it didn't work. The tree went over into the water.

Somehow, Heath managed to jump clear of it toward the bank where Nick was. He crawled and scrambled as hard and as fast as he could toward dry land. At the edge of the water now, Heath grabbed for whatever he could – mud, rocks, fallen branches, whatever. It was enough. Choking on water and mud, he got close enough to the edge of the water for Nick to reach him. Nick let the rope go, and it was carried away downstream, but he got hold of Heath by the belt and pulled him with every bit of strength he had. Heath finally found more solid ground beneath him, and he and Nick crawled uphill as fast as they could, away from the water. They collapsed against another tree that was safely out of the flood, panting and muddy and choking on water, but alive. Alive and safe.

Heath looked back at the water taking branches and brush and the tree downstream with it, but not taking him. "Damn!" he said.

Nick saw the rest of the men safe on the other side, and he waved an arm to tell them he and Heath were all right. Then it hit him, what had happened. He had sent Heath into that stream, and Heath had nearly been swept away forever in that flash flood.

Nick looked up and saw the storm clouds beginning to move in from upstream. "Come on," he said, helped Heath to his feet, and together they stumbled even further away from the water. It started to rain, so they kept moving up. The stream could very well get even higher. They didn't want to be anywhere near it.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

It was after four when it started to rain in Stockton. Jarrod hadn't been paying any attention to the approaching clouds, concentrating on his work completely, but then he began to hear the heavy drops of rain hitting his window. Startled, he got up, and he cursed himself for not even noticing the weather.

He told his secretary, "I'm going to try to get home before this gets much worse," and he left, but getting home to outrun the weather wasn't really on his mind. As much as he hated to think it, he was getting concerned about what Sophie had said.

His rain slick was with his horse at the livery, and he threw the poncho over his head before he headed out. Fortunately it was not raining that heavily anywhere, but when he came to the bridge over the stream, he got a shock. This was the stream that usually proved to be the flooding problem if there was going to be one – the same stream Nick and Heath had tangled with much further upstream. Jarrod noticed that the bridge was clogged with fallen limbs and even an entire tree, making a slight dam that made the water upstream gather and spread out wide. Jarrod hesitated there. He wasn't sure what condition the bridge was in, but the damming of the water upstream kept the water on the downstream side of the bridge fairly low. Jarrod hurried his horse through the water on the downstream side and was soon safely across and heading home.

It was close to five thirty and the rain had stopped completely at the house when he got there. Ciego took his horse – but the man looked awfully nervous. "Everything all right, Ciego?" Jarrod asked.

"Senor Nick and Senor Heath had a very close call today," Ciego said, and Jarrod felt his stomach sink. "They got caught in a flood."

Alarmed, Jarrod hurried into the house, throwing his wet hat and poncho over the table just inside the foyer. His mother and sister came toward him fast.

"Everything is all right," Victoria said quickly, holding him back. "Nick and Heath are fine."

"What happened? Where are they?" Jarrod asked.

"They're cleaning up," Victoria said. "They got caught in a flood, and they're full of mud and scratched up and banged up, but they're all right."

"Nick is helping Heath doctor himself a bit, up in his room," Audra said.

Jarrod hurried upstairs, taking the steps two at a time, and in a moment he knocked at Heath's door. He went in as soon as he heard Heath's voice.

Heath was sitting on the bed, shirtless but in dry pants and socks and it looked like he had taken a bath. Nick was in a similar state only wearing boots too. He was putting liniment on the many cuts and gashes Heath had all over his face, chest and arms. Nick wasn't scraped up as badly.

"What happened?" Jarrod asked.

"Flash flood," Nick said. "Heath was in the stream when it hit."

"I got into a tree and Nick managed to pull me out, but I didn't have a shirt on and you can see what the rocks in the water and all those tree limbs did to me," Heath said.

"Thank God you're alive," Jarrod said. "Are you all right, Nick?"

"Yeah, a few scratches but not much," Nick said.

Jarrod sighed and sat down into a chair. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, I saw Mademoiselle Sophiette today."

His brothers both stopped and looked suspicious, uneasy.

Jarrod shook his head. "She saw me in the Stockton House and told me that whatever she saw that was going to happen to you, Heath, was going to happen today, but that everything would work out fine. She told me about the rain, even though when I saw her it was bright and sunny out."

"Oh, boy," Heath sighed.

Nick resumed putting the liniment on Heath's cuts and scratches, but his hands were shaking now. "She really did see something," he finally said quietly.

"It seems so," Jarrod said, resigned now. She really had seen something, detailed enough to make him doubt his skepticism. He hated that, but he was stuck with it, at least for this one instance.

Nick finished with the liniment, and Heath stood up, slowly and stiffly. He had a shirt lying on the bed next to him, and he put it on. "Well, if she was right – and it looks like she was – it's all over now," Heath said.

Nick looked at Jarrod. "Except for the part where she told our big brother to stay away from us."

Earlier in the day, Jarrod would have scoffed. Now he wasn't so sure, but he wasn't ready to give in to it either. "She didn't have anything more to say about that, Nick," Jarrod said. "Let's just let it alone."

Nick glanced at Heath buttoning his shirt. "After this, how can we?"

"Well, what do you want to do? Go talk to her again?"

Heath tried stretching sore muscles. "I'm not going anywhere except to where we keep the whiskey." He grabbed his boots and sat down again to put them on.

"I'll go get a shirt," Nick said and left the room.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Jarrod asked Heath.

Heath nodded and pulled one boot on. "Just sore. Turns out it's a lot of exercise just hanging onto a tree. Jarrod, what you just told us – you know you just set Nick off again, don't you?"

"I know," Jarrod said, "and I've done a little of that to myself. Con artists don't usually get as specific as Sophie did with me today. And I can't deny it, she was spot on."

"I think I ought to talk to her."

Jarrod eyed his youngest brother. "Maybe you're right. Regardless of what she says about me, I get the feeling the two of you still need to put some things to rest. She looked awfully relieved when she said you were going to be all right, Heath."

Heath pulled on his other boot and stood up, slowly again. "If she looked relieved to think I was gonna be all right, it's all leftover feeling. There's nothing between us now." He heaved a sigh. "I'm too sore to sit a horse tonight. Maybe I'll go see her tomorrow, try to straighten all the rest of this out."

Jarrod rubbed his forehead. "I'd just as soon you don't talk to her about that premonition that I should stay away from you two. I'll think about it overnight, see how I feel in the morning."

"She might bring it up."

"Well, if she does, she does."

"What are you going to say to Mother and Audra?" Heath asked. "After this, they might be about to start worrying."

"I'll say what I just said to you," Jarrod said. "And I still think we ought to keep Nick away from her. I don't want him deciding he wants to hear more about his future."

"Jarrod, he feels guilty because he sent me into that stream."

"How could he have known that's where the problem was supposed to be? It wasn't raining when you went in, was it?"

They started toward the door. "No," Heath said. "Nice and sunny. That flood came from so far upstream we never saw the storm until we were out of the water."

"We'll settle Nick down and settle Mother and Audra down and decide if we need to find out anything more about MY future in the morning. You said she was right about half the time, right?"

"Yeah," Heath said and opened the door.

"Well, she was right about you. Odds are she's wrong about me. Let's go have a drink."

They ran into Nick in the hall, buttoning his shirt on. Nick heard that last sentence of Jarrod's and said, "You ready to leave your future up to the odds?" he asked.

"I'm not ready to give it over to a fortuneteller," Jarrod said, "even if she did get it right about Heath. But let's just have a good dinner and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow."

Nick heaved an uncomfortable sigh. "I don't want to be the cause of anything happening to you, Jarrod."

"You know," Jarrod said, "she didn't say something was going to happen to me. She just said we should stay away from each other. It could be I'm supposed to do something to the two of you."

Nick heaved another sigh. He was starting to get a headache.

"Sophie gave us a warning about today, Nick, and you saved me," Heath said. "If she's warned us about Jarrod, all we gotta do is what we did today – be careful."

Nick hesitated – he had put Heath in harm's way before he saved him - but he gave a nod.

Jarrod gave him a slap on the back. "Tomorrow, Nick. We'll talk about this again tomorrow and figure out what we're going to do then, if we do anything at all."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Drinks and dinner were happy occasions that night. Heath was a sight and moving like an 80-year-old man, but he was alive. Nick looked better, and if his spirits were not as up as they usually were at the beginning, he loosened up as the food and drink went down. Jarrod put Mademoiselle Sophiette completely out of his mind and kept a smile on his face all evening.

Victoria and Audra had talked between themselves about the fortuneteller and the effect she was having on their men, but they decided to ignore the issue for the evening, too. It was at breakfast the next morning before any of it came up again, and it was Victoria who brought it up.

"What do any of you men intend to do about Mademoiselle Whats-Her-Name today?" she asked very bluntly after the prayer was finished.

Jarrod, Nick and Heath looked at each other. They hadn't really talked about it, but separately they had come to pretty much the same conclusion. Heath said it first. "I need to go into town and find her and talk to her this morning. I need to tell her what happened yesterday, and we need to finish some things up."

"And I need to stay away from her," Nick said. "I don't want to run the risk she'll start telling me my future again. I'm better off not knowing."

"Knowing what she saw did help you out yesterday," Audra said.

Nick smiled self-consciously. "Maybe. We didn't know the details when it happened though. I don't know. I just know I don't want to have another couple days like I just had. I don't need to be talking to her again."

"And what about you, Jarrod?" Victoria said. "Are you still comfortable with ignoring what she said about you staying away from Nick and Heath?"

"I've thought about it," Jarrod said. "I'll admit, after the detail she gave me yesterday about what she saw happening to Nick and Heath and how it worked out that way, I started second guessing myself. But, I'm with Heath on this. He needs to talk to her, and if there's anything more for her to say about me, she'll say it to him. I don't need to be talking to her again, either. And I'm not going anywhere."

"Are you comfortable with talking to her alone, Heath?" Audra asked.

Heath nodded. "Yeah. I am."

"Well then," Victoria said. "It sounds like we're all in agreement. And Jarrod will be in town if you need him, Heath."

Heath shook his head. "I don't think I'm gonna need him. I think I'm gonna be able to put things with Sophie to rest on my own."

So Heath rode into town with Jarrod, but they didn't talk much. Jarrod could see Heath was going over what he was going to say to Sophie in his mind, and Jarrod didn't want to interrupt him. He didn't envy Heath the conversation he was about to have – he knew how discussions with old flames could go, and this one was going to be more complicated than most.

When they rode into town, Jarrod said, "Let me check with the telegraph office and see if I've gotten anything from Pinkerton."

They checked together, but there was nothing from Pinkerton yet. Jarrod wasn't surprised. There hadn't been enough time for Pinkerton to do their job.

"I guess Sophie's at the Stockton House, don't you think?" Heath asked as they left the telegraph office.

Jarrod nodded. "Check the café there first. She might be having breakfast. Good luck, Little Brother." Then he gave Heath a clap on the arm and went off to his office.

Heath was moving better than he had been the night before, but he was still noticeably slow about it. He passed a couple ladies he knew as he went into the hotel and tipped his hat to them. Once inside, he went straight to the café – and ran right into Sophie coming out.

"Heath!" she said as they stopped and looked at each other. Then she saw his banged up face. "Oh – it looks like you did run into some trouble."

"Yesterday," Heath said. "Sophie, I'd like to talk, someplace private."

Her room was out of the question. "I took a walk yesterday and found a little park out behind the courthouse," she said.

Heath nodded and offered his arm.

As they left the hotel and started down the street, Sophie said, "I see your face is cut up a bit."

"I wrestled a tree," Heath said. "I'm banged up a bit, but you should see the tree."

Sophie chuckled. "I guess that's what you want to talk about. Jarrod told you what I said to him yesterday."

"Yes, but after I wrestled the tree."

They walked in silence then until they came to the small park behind the courthouse. There were benches there, none of them occupied at this hour. Heath guided Sophie to a bench out in the sunshine and they sat down. For another long moment, they just sat. Sophie adjusted her sunbonnet and placed her reticule in her lap.

Heath asked, "How are your shows at the Gaiety going?"

"Very nicely," she said. "I took a couple private readings yesterday evening, too. But frankly, I'll be happy to be finished here. I think you'll be happy to have me finished here."

"That's part of what I wanted to talk about," Heath said. "Something I have to tell you that you probably already know. All those years ago, one of the reasons I decided to leave was that thing you told me about killing a man. It was too much for a simple cowhand. It's pretty unsettling to have someone in your life who's always warning you about bad things that are coming up."

"And you got a nasty reminder of that when I told your brother Nick what I told him."

"I didn't get as nervous as he did. Guess I had time to think about it and when I saw him get nervous, I figured I had to steel up."

"But you still don't like it."

"No. I don't like it. I never know whether to believe it or not, and that makes me unsettled. Nick believed you, but he was nervous because he thought what was gonna happen would be his fault."

"Was it? It did happen, didn't it?"

"Yeah, just like you told Jarrod yesterday. A heavy rain and I got caught in a flash flood, and Nick did kind of feel the blame for it, since he sent me into the creek right before the flood hit. But that's all over now. I'm all right, he's all right. We didn't know all the details you told Jarrod when it happened, and knowing them probably wouldn't have made much difference anyway. All that did was make Jarrod uneasy, once he found out what happened to us."

Sophie sighed. "And your brother Jarrod was already uneasy with me – well, he was downright angry."

"Jarrod's the oldest of us. He gets protective. It's always been his job."

"I have a hard time believing you'd let anyone get protective toward you."

Heath smiled. "Now and then it's kinda nice. But that's the other thing I need to talk to you about. What you said to Jarrod – about staying away from me and Nick. It made Jarrod more angry with you, but after yesterday, it unsettled him a bit. And Nick, he's still trying to decide if what happened to me was his fault and now he's got Jarrod in the back of his mind – "

"I lied, Heath," Sophie said suddenly.

Heath looked at her.

She looked back and shrugged. "I lied. I made Jarrod angry? He made me angry, too, so I just pulled that warning out of thin air to upset him. And maybe you were right when you first came to see me at the Gaiety. Maybe I still wanted to get back at you for leaving me. I did see what I said I did, about you and Nick, but Heath, I haven't seen anything about Jarrod, and I haven't seen anything more about you or Nick or anybody in your family. I'm sorry."

Heath sighed, happy to hear there was no other warning to worry about, but troubled that she had lied to hurt Jarrod intentionally, and to hurt him. Had she done that to him at any time when they were together years ago? He didn't want to know now. "That gift you have can be a weapon, too, Sophie."

"And I used it as one," she said. "I don't blame you if you hate me about it. It was hurtful of me. I knew it was wrong of me when I did it, but that doesn't excuse anything, does it?"

Heath looked at her. She did seem to have genuine regret in her eyes, but - "No, it doesn't excuse anything," Heath said.

Sophie sighed, and smiled a little. "I guess that's all there really is to say. I'm still a petulant girl who wants to help other people but can't avoid hurting them when they don't appreciate me, or don't give me what I want, or leave me."

"There really is a lot to love about you, Sophie," Heath said. "You're still young. You're still gonna do some growing up. Someday, somebody's gonna come along and you're gonna want to keep your gift as a gift, and throw away the weapon."

Now she laughed and looked up at the sky. "And pigs will go flying over in a V formation, just like geese. Ah, Heath. I'll never change. I'm sorry I hurt your family. I'm not sorry I warned you to be careful, but I am sorry for the rest of it. But this gift, this curse – I'm never gonna be able to tame it. I think it would be best if you and yours just let me finish my engagement here and go on my way. Don't any of you come see me again."

Heath didn't bother to tell her they had all decided on that already. She didn't have to be a fortuneteller to know it. He stood up, and he leaned over and kissed her. "Don't you give up on yourself, Sophie. I'll always wish the best for you. Good-bye."

He left her there, walking away as stiff and sore as ever. He tried to put her out of his mind when he reached the street, but he saw the Gaiety and he saw Jarrod's office, and he saw Nick's horse hitched outside the office. Heath went on inside Jarrod's building and climbed the stairs.

Jarrod's secretary's eyes grew wide when she saw the state of Heath's face. He smiled. "Is he available?"

She nodded.

Heath gave a knock on the door to the inner office and then went in, finding Jarrod seated behind his desk and Nick seated in front of it. They looked up at him as he came in and took the chair next to Nick's.

"Is it over?" Jarrod asked.

Heath nodded. "She admitted she lied about seeing some reason you should stay away from Nick and me. She was mad at you for doubting what she said to Nick and getting angry with her. Don't go getting mad about this, either one of you. There's a lot of little girl still in that woman."

"She's young, she'll grow out of it," Jarrod said.

"I'd rather not be around to see that she does," Nick said.

"She knows she won't be seeing any of us again. I think she's just as happy about it. I know you just got here, Nick," Heath said, "but I'm ready to head on home and get back to work if you are."

Nick got up. "I'm ready. And by the way, Jarrod, I never gave her any money, so we don't owe each other a thing on that bet. And warning or no warning, we're gonna be extra careful today. Neither one of us is in tip-top shape."

Heath stood up, too, but then so did Jarrod. "Hang on a minute," Jarrod said. "I can put today's work off until tomorrow. Maybe I'll go help you finish up stringing that wire across the creek, just to prove we're not jinxes for each other."

"Why in the world would you want to fix fence?" Nick asked. "You wanna look as banged up as we do?"

"No," Jarrod said with a smile. "But since I DON'T have to avoid being around you, I might as well help you two cripples out."

"We're gonna have to repair that bridge across the creek, too," Heath said. "Some storm debris from yesterday banged it up worse than we got banged up."

Jarrod grabbed his hat and they all headed for the door. Nick said, "Here's hoping it doesn't rain any more today."

It didn't.

The End


End file.
